Archery, Praise and Sin: Hitting or Missing the Mark According to Neville Goddard’s Law of Assumption

(featuring Judah: the embodiment of Praise, and David: the arrow in motion)

It is no accident that the Bible uses archery language to define two key concepts of manifestation: praise and sin. This isn’t surprising when you understand that the Bible is deliberately symbolic—its stories are not historical records, but psychological instruction. Neville Goddard taught that the entire Scripture plays out in the mind of the individual, revealing how we bring forth what we are conscious of being.

• Praise (yadah, in Hebrew) means to shoot, to throw, or to cast, especially as one shoots an arrow.

• Sin in Hebrew, the same idea is present: the word ḥāṭā’ (חָטָא), translated as “sin,” literally means to miss, to miss the mark, to fall short—an archer’s term for failing to hit the target

• Sin (hamartia, in Greek) means to miss the mark.

This is the precision of Scripture: praise is conscious assumption aimed true; sin is assumption scattered or misdirected.

---

Judah: The State of Praise

Judah, one of Jacob’s sons, is the first to be named Praise. His name is the act of shooting the arrow—deliberate, targeted, and bold. He symbolises the part of us that lifts our awareness and directs it to the fulfilment of the wish, not the problem.

In Neville’s framework, Judah is the state of consciousness that assumes with certainty. He does not question. He does not ask how. He praises—that is, he aligns. Through Judah, the Bible shows us that praise is the starting point of creation, and it is through praise that the lineage eventually brings forth Jesus—the embodiment of fulfilled imagination.

This isn’t just lineage. It’s instruction: from praise, the Saviour (the realised state) is born.

---

Praise: The Spiritual Archer’s Stance

When you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you are like Judah—you praise before there’s evidence. You lift your inner vision and aim it at what you’ve chosen to believe is already yours.

Praise is not performance. It is not religious noise. It is the inward act of fixing your consciousness on the end and feeling its reality. It is precise. Like an archer, you don’t look at the bow—you look at the mark.

Praise in this way is faith in action. And it always precedes manifestation.

---

David: The Arrow in Motion

Born from Judah’s line, David represents what praise sets in motion. If Judah is the act of shooting the arrow, then David is the arrow itself—the manifestation, the visible result of an inward act of assumption.

In 1 Samuel 20, arrows are used in a scene where Jonathan secretly communicates with David. Jonathan shoots arrows into the field to signal whether David should stay or flee. While this may seem a mere plot device, symbolically it reveals that David, the anointed inner state, is being guided through invisible, intuitive means—as Neville would say, by the bridge of incidents that follows assumption.

David is also described elsewhere as a weapon in God’s hand:

“He made me a polished arrow, in His quiver He hid me.” – Isaiah 49:2

This verse, often read prophetically, speaks symbolically of your prepared state of consciousness—hidden until the right moment. You are the polished arrow. David is that perfected trajectory, launched when praise has been rightly aimed.

---

Sin: When Consciousness Misses

By contrast, to sin is to miss the mark—to allow attention to scatter, to doubt, to fear, to dwell in what is not wanted. You fall short of your chosen state.

Sin is not wrongdoing in a moral sense; it is mis-aimed assumption. You are still using the power of imagination—but you are directing it carelessly, unconsciously, or toward what you do not desire. The Law of Assumption does not judge. It simply manifests what is impressed upon it.

You do not need to repent in guilt—you need only realign your aim.

---

Praise or Sin: The Choice in Every Moment

Judah lives within you. So does the ability to miss the mark. In every moment, you are either praising (deliberately assuming the end) or sinning (identifying with the absence of it). And the result is not divine reward or punishment, but manifestation in kind.

The Bible shows us through Judah that praise brings forth life. It leads the way. In fact, in the wilderness, Judah’s tribe always marched first. That is the symbolic truth: praise must come before the evidence, before the result, and the rest of your experience follows.

And through David, it shows us what happens next: when you praise, your assumption is launched like an arrow into the invisible. David is what follows—a life shaped and moved by inner certainty.

So take up the bow of your awareness. Aim with clarity. Assume with confidence.
Praise like Judah—not in reaction, but in creation.
And watch David—the beloved state—fly straight and true into view.

The arrow of your imagination is already in your hands.
Let it fly.